News:

The Book of the Diner is well worth preserving. I only wish it had reached a broader audience when it might have mattered more. That is a testament to the blindness of our culture. If there is a future to look back from, one difficult question historians will have to ask is how we let this happen, when so many saw it coming. This site has certainly aggregated enough information and critical thinking to prove that.[/b]

I don't think they have anywhere near 17,000 linemen available to work this job. Where would they stay? You think there are 17,000 hotel rooms available when every hotel was booked solid by people bugging out?

Well, according to the Bureau of Lies and Silliness, there were 236,600 Line Installers and Repairers in the US in 2014, and according to CareerOneStop.org, Florida had about 7000. That leaves 10000 they need to bring in from out of state (less than 5% of the total, so not out of the question), and booking 4 to a room requires only 2500 rooms.... but that IS still a stretch.

If you’re like me, you can’t stop yourself from watching the weather these days. And if you’re like me, you can’t help but think: Holy shit, it’s here.

Back-to-back hurricane catastrophes have plunged the United States into a state of national crisis. We’ve already seen one worst-case scenario in Texas: For the moment, Hurricane Harvey stands as the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history. And now there’s Irma, which has wreaked havoc across the entirety of Florida, America’s most vulnerable state. In just two weeks, the U.S. could rack up hundreds of billions of dollars in losses.

Make no mistake: These storms weren’t natural. A warmer, more violent atmosphere — heated up by our collective desire to ignore the fact that we live on a planet where such devastation is possible — juiced Harvey and Irma’s destruction.

Houston and South Florida have long been considered two of our most vulnerable regions, carved out of swamps in some of the most storm-prone parts of the Earth. Now they lay, at least partially, in ruins.

Lurking behind the horrific scenes of water rising above rooftops along swollen Texas bayous and palm trees snapping in front of battered beachfront condos is this stark reality: Climate change doesn’t “cause” disasters like this, but it most certainly is making them worse.

It’s scary to watch this play out in real time. People’s lives and our landscapes are being altered. This is not a “new normal.” There is no more normal.

The effects of this new phase in our new climate reality reach far beyond the southeastern United States. Devastating floods across India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria in recent weeks collectively killed hundreds more than Harvey has and Irma likely will, combined.

A massive complex of wildfires is burning millions of acres across the North American West, with a smoke plume stretching coast-to-coast. On September 1, the day a petrochemical plant outside Houston exploded amid Harvey’s floodwaters, San Francisco recorded its warmest day in history — a blistering 106-degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than oft-scorching Tucson, Arizona.

Each of these events, individually, have a connection to the warming atmosphere. Collectively, they’re a klaxon siren that something is very, very wrong.

Of course, bad luck also played a role in the last two weeks. It’s hard to separate the two. Harvey, a Category 4 hurricane at landfall, oriented itself perfectly as it developed to maximize the rainmaking power of an overheated Gulf of Mexico.

Irma, one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded on Earth, hopscotched through the Caribbean, making landfall on half a dozen islands at peak strength. And a third storm, Jose, also reached Category 4 strength, prompting a complete evacuation of the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda — just four days after it was almost completely destroyed by Irma.

Some weather models now show Jose could make a loop in the middle of the Atlantic this week. If it heads back toward land, Florida is a possible destination.

So yeah, bad luck. But this is also the first time in history that the Atlantic has seen back-to-back-to-back hurricanes of Category 4 or higher. At one point on Friday, Irma and Jose both had estimated winds of 150 mph — strong enough to pulverize even well-built houses. Never before have two hurricanes of that strength existed simultaneously, much less assaulted the same piece of land.

We knew a time like this was coming. In the U.S. government’s recent Climate Science Special Report — painstakingly assembled by 13 federal agencies from the work of thousands of scientists around the world and then leaked to the New York Times for fear of censorship by the Trump Administration — the authors were clear:

Hurricanes, especially the strongest ones, are going to get worse in the future.

Both physics and numerical modeling simulations indicate an increase in tropical cyclone intensity in a warmer world, and the models generally show an increase in the number of very intense tropical cyclones. For Atlantic and eastern North Pacific hurricanes and western North Pacific typhoons, increases are projected in precipitation rates and intensity. The frequency of the most intense of these storms is projected to increase in the Atlantic and western North Pacific and in the eastern North Pacific.

With each year that passes, we’re locking in an extension of this horrific, tragic moment in human history — a time period between when the effects of climate change become blindingly obvious and when we actually do something meaningful about it. Scientists have warned us for decades about worsening weather. But many of our leaders fail to act.

In his 2009 memoir, climate scientist James Hansen warned of the “storms of my grandchildren.” Turns out, he was still alive to see them. Climate writer Alex Steffen calls this new era, which feels outside the realm of normal existence, a “xenotopia,” or strange world.

Every day, British naturalist writer Robert MacFarlane uses his Twitter account to define a new word that relates to our new reality. (Friday’s was “caochan” — “a stream so slender or overgrown it can scarcely be seen.”) Today we are already mourning a destruction that has yet to happen — a phenomenon the Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht calls “solastalgia.”

There’s evidence that extreme weather, no matter the magnitude, won’t change our politics anytime soon. Predictably and understandably, Texans and Floridians are already focused on rebuilding. But missing from the conversation right now is a frank discussion about the near future.

Destructive storms like Harvey and Irma will only become more common. Accepting that fact — and talking about the radical change necessary to reverse this trend — is the most important thing we can do right now.

Those conversations could alter the way we build our cities, so we put fewer people in harm’s way. They could begin to force our government to rethink its habit of subsidizing the corporations and industries that got us into this mess.

We’re not talking about far-flung creatures and concepts like polar bears and melting ice caps anymore. We’re talking about the destruction of lives and places where many of us live or have visited.

At times like these, politicians like to talk about the American ability to come back stronger than ever. What if, this time, we considered planning ahead so we don’t need to come back at all?

More than 12 million without power in Florida as Hurricane Irma’s effects lingerBy Joel Achenbach, Katie Zezima, Mark Berman and William Wan September 11 at 8:14 PM

Folks enjoy the beach next to a washed-up sailboat from Hurricane Irma at Miami Marine Stadium on Monday. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

MIAMI — As Hurricane Irma dissipated into a tropical storm on Monday, Florida’s residents emerged to streets littered with debris and downed trees while nearly two-thirds of the state was left without electricity.

The once-powerful storm left trailer homes sliced open like ripe melons, boats tossed upside down on roadways and centuries-old trees strewn across power lines. As it trailed off on Monday, Irma’s rains caused floodwaters to rise from Jacksonville, Fla., to Charleston, S.C., continuing to impact a massive area of the American southeast.

But it could have been much worse.

That was the grateful mantra on the lips of many on Monday, even as an estimated 12 million Floridians prepared for a dark night without air conditioning in the muggy post-storm swelter. Though there was significant property damage in the Florida Keys and in some parts of southwest Florida, officials said it was remarkable that so far they are investigating just a small number of fatalities that came as the storm made landfall. It was unclear how many were directly related to the storm.

[Why Hurricane Irma wasn’t far worse, and how close it came to catastrophe]

The lack of electricity across most of South Florida was the most pressing and crippling problem. Millions could remain in the dark for days or even weeks as utility companies struggle to navigate impassable roads and floodwaters to slowly restore power.

But in the face of cataclysmic warnings and worries — including a mass exodus from Florida’s most-populous area — Irma largely spared many of the major cities predicted to be in its path. Some, including Tampa and Orlando, escaped relatively unscathed. Others, such as Jacksonville, experienced unlikely — and record-breaking — effects.

Waters in Jacksonville, in the state’s far northeast, sent residents scrambling to the top floors of their houses Monday morning. The St. Johns River, which cuts through the city, overflowed its banks, flooding bridges and streets.

Rescuers used boats, water scooters and even surfboards to get to residents surprised by the rising waters, said Kimberly Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Clay County emergency center. “You have to get creative in a situation like this,” she said.

Morgan said that evacuation shelters, which already held 700 people before Monday, we’re expected to fill up even more. “We don’t think we’re going to see the end of this until Friday,” she said.

Scores of power lines went down as a result of Hurricane Irma’s winds along Corkscrew Road near Estero, Fla. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

Authorities warned that it was not yet safe for evacuated residents to return to their homes in many areas of Florida, the threat of floods still looming as rivers swell with rainwater and storm surges continue to send rising ocean waters into towns, especially in northern Florida. And state officials warned that another approaching storm, Hurricane Jose, is pushing still more water toward the northern part of the state.

Gov. Rick Scott (R) called the flooding in Jacksonville “historic” — officials said the city could end up with four feet of standing water — and he warned the many residents still stuck in the dark that “it’s going to take us a long time to get the power back up.”

Marilyn Miller awoke in St. Petersburg at 1:30 a.m. Monday to a pitch-black house. A native Floridian, Miller was expecting the outages and has even gotten used to them after enduring years of tropical storms.

What she didn’t expect, she said, was the possibility that the blackout could last for days.

As neighbor after neighbor on her block tried to call Duke Energy for help, they heard that just 80 homes in their neighborhood had lost power — out of more than 100,000 across Pinellas County.

It became clear, Miller said, that her neighborhood would not be the priority. So she started making readjustments to a time before technology.

“I need my cellphone. It wakes me up in the morning for work. I need my air conditioner at nighttime,” she said. “Can’t cook. Can’t see. Can’t do anything.”

Officials warned that flooding from Florida to South Carolina could pose a particular danger in coming days. Residents around Charleston, S.C., were urged to avoid the city’s downtown until flooding there subsides.

Irma’s thrashing winds cut power to two-thirds of all power company customers in Florida, totaling more than 6.5 million customer accounts. Because each account often represents more than one person, the overall number may be historic, said Eric Silagy, president and chief executive of Florida Power and Light (FPL), the state’s largest utility, which supplies power to about half of Florida. Silagy said Monday that as many as 9 million people were affected by his company’s outages.

Shawna Berger, a spokeswoman for Duke Energy, said 1.2 million of its 1.8 million customers were without power in Florida and noted that if you multiply that number by 2.5 — per the latest census data, she said — that shows that 3 million people were affected.

“We’ve never had that many outages,” Silagy said. “I don’t think any utility in the country has.”

The outages pose a particular issue in Florida, where temperatures in Miami and Tampa are forecast to get into the 90s this week. Silagy warned that some people “could be out of power for weeks,” particularly if crews need to rebuild parts of the sprawling electrical system. The utility has sent out 19,500 workers across Florida to restore power and is trying to secure more crews from out of state.

Because of the storm’s size, FPL crews were not able to start restoration efforts until late Sunday night, Silagy said. And they are still not able to move across northern Florida, he said, with debris and flooding impeding their way.

The blackouts extended to surrounding states, with more than 146,000 power outages in South Carolina and outages trending upward in Georgia on Monday night as the remnants of Irma passed through.

As a testament to Florida’s fortune, Caribbean countries preceding it on Irma’s path continued to struggle to recover Monday long after the storm had passed. In Cuba, the hurricane’s scissoring winds and strafing rain had torn apart buildings and roofs and sent flooding along the northern coast. The storm ravaged the Virgin Islands, devastated Barbuda and pummeled other islands on its path.

Irma is expected to keep losing force as it continues inland, and forecasters say it should be a tropical depression by Tuesday afternoon. But the storm maintained its remarkable reach, with tropical-storm-force winds reaching more than 400 miles.

As the storm moved inland Monday, it continued pouring torrential rain onto Georgia, the Carolinas and Alabama, where President Trump declared a state of emergency on Monday night.

In Atlanta, Delta Air Lines canceled about 800 flights from its hub operations Monday in anticipation of “strong crosswinds,” which could reverberate through the air travel system nationwide. Thousands of flights already have been halted due to the storm. Atlanta, hundreds of miles from any coast and more than 600 miles north of the place where Irma first hit the mainland, was placed under its first tropical-storm warning.Play Video 0:16Sept. 10: Boats sink as Hurricane Irma hits Key LargoEmbedShareRising waters cause boats to sink as Hurricane Irma passes through Key Largo, Fla. on Sept. 10. (Instagram/@enriquesinh)

As the skies began to clear, hordes of evacuees inland began making plans to return home — a mass migration that had Florida officials pleading for patience and more time.

Nearly 6 million people were told to evacuate ahead of Irma, in what is believed to be the largest evacuation in American history.

Many roads remained blocked by heavy trees, authorities warned. Fuel also was a concern, with some seaports closed and tanker trucks unable to refuel gas stations along the homeward path of many residents.

“Wait for direction from local officials before returning to evacuated areas,” Scott told evacuees in a tweet.

Driving in many cities remained extremely hazardous — an exercise in vigilance due to downed trees and the ubiquitous palm fronds that lurked in wait like alligators on the street. In Miami, some residents expressed frustration about the evacuations, which in many cases ultimately weren’t necessary.

“Everyone got stirred up, and they were told to leave,” said Sara Edelman, 29, a biologist walking along 104th Street with her mother, Philis Edelman, 60, an officer worker. “And now there’s no one to clean the trees up.”

Dan Zumpano, 44, who lives nearby, said he believes authorities began evacuations “way too early” in an abundance of caution, driving people from places that ultimately weren’t seriously impacted by the storm into areas that were: “I thought it was the right thing to do, but I think they sent a lot of people right into the core of the hurricane.”

That was a familiar story: People who evacuated from Miami to Tampa. And then, in some cases, from Tampa to Orlando. The storm followed many of them the entire time. “Every day you saw the models changing,” Zumpano said.

But all along Miami’s streets, signs also remained of the hurricane’s fury and the tragic possibilities that might have been.

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Sailboats on Miami’s Coconut Grove marina were flipped over. Million-dollar yachts were half submerged in the bay. Once-idyllic parks looked like desolate war zones. Large trees toppled over, roots dangling in the air.

Resident Paul Plante came to the marina to check on his home and boat, which he had docked indoors. His boat was fine, and he and his sister looked in disbelief at the submerged boats in the bay that weren’t so lucky.

“You have to take nine different roads to get here now, but everything was okay,” he said. “The storm surge could have been so much worse. We’re lucky.”

Chris Perez stands near a downed palm tree that landed on his family's home during Hurricane Irma in Palmetto Bay on Monday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Between 2,000 and 3,000 utility workers from out-of-state were staying at BB&T Center in Broward County, home to the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers, said Gus Beyersdorf, 40, of De Pere, Wisconsin, who was inspecting power lines in the southeastern coastal city of Fort Lauderdale on Monday.

“Each one of us has a cot, a single foot apart,” Beyersdorf said on Monday afternoon. “I slept in the truck last night just to get a break from it.”

A while back I wrote a series of articles called "The Dimming Bulb", discussing our decreasing ability to keep electric power moving through the copper wires of our electric grids to the end Konsumer as we slide down the Seneca Cliff on the far side of the Age of Oil. This aspect of energy decline in availability and affordability is often overlooked in the face of all the problems that come from the transportation industry and lack of fuel for the Carz and Trux. In fact though, it may well be that lack of ability to keep electricity moving through our metro areas with high populations and a voracious need for this power may be what brings TEOTWAWKI before lack of gas for Happy Motoring does.

Just about everything in our society depends on having electricity on demand. To begin with, the residential konsumers of the JUICE in Florida are currently watching their freezers defrost and if they are not cooking or drying the meat they have stored, they are going to lose a lot of food to begin with. All the large municipalities have sewage treatment plants that use gobs of electricity. How well and how long these can be run on backup generators is an open question.

You definitely CANNOT run all the streetlights of a city like Miami or even fucking Naples on backup generators, so until you have general grid power restored those suckers are LIGHTS OUT. Would you feel safe walking around the streets of Miami with no streetlights functioning?

A day after the Big Event everyone is breathing a "sigh of relief" here that they "dodged a bullet", but the real problems of recovering from such a broad swath of devastation remain ahead. It remains an open question exactly how quickly Florida Power & Light can restore the grid statewide, and until they do BAU for people without power just isn't possible. How many currently have potable water coming out of the taps? No statistic on that is available AFAIK. How many have had their carz ruined and can't get to work, if they still have a job to go to? Somehow I doubt many people will be stopping at Starbucks tomorrow for a Frappucino on the way to work. How are people who have little to no savings and live paycheck to paycheck going to pay their rent if they lose the next 2 weeks of work?

I woke up just in time this morning to see Irma make landfall in the Florida Keys here in the FSoA. Not much in the way of Newz or Info coming out of the Keys since then. I imagine Key West was pretty much flattened St. Maarten's style, although maybe not quite so bad since she hit in Key West at low Cat 4 wind speeds. She picked up some translational speed from the crawl speed across the north Cuban coastline, scooting up to 14 MPH to make the rest of the trip across the straights to make a second landfall near Naples, FL on the West Coast.

This location for GROUND ZERO disappointed some Doomophiles who were hoping for a full on Eyewall decimation of the skycrapers and hotels in Miami, which did not occur. The concept that we "dodged a bullet" here or that this event was a "dud" because Miami wasn't completely wiped out is only in the mind of the Kollapsnik who was looking forward to total devastation of that city.

What occurred instead was a much more widespread event, over the whole of the Florida Peninsula. It could have been much worse of course, either a run up the east or west coast would have kept hurricane strength longer and brought more storm surge in. Instead, after making landfall in Naples, Irma worked her way into the interior, more or less targeting Orlando and Disney World while the wind speeds dropped to Cat 1 and then to tropical force winds. As I write this now, she is just south of Orlando, and points north of the former center and eye are still being hit with powerful rain bands, along with possible Tornadoes hitting along that route.

From here, she is scheduled to head north into Georgia still packing Tropical Force winds and a lot of rain is destined to fall around Atlanta with some decent remaining wind behind it, so you are going to get more flash flooding and more downed power lines in that neighborhood as well by the end of the week. All of which speaks to the INFRASTRUCTURE problem, which is the real problem here, not the wind speeds Irma had on landfall in one particular location. This is a behemoth which is affecting the entire Florida peninsula and beyond.

The main issue already obvious tonight is that 7M Florida Power & Light Konsumers of Energy are currently without power. This exceeds the record previously held by Wilma with about 3.5M customers without the JUICE, and that is a LOT of wire to restring over a very broad area. Currently, Houston 2 weeks after Harvey STILL has about 200K Energy Konsumers without power, and they didn't lose near so many with Harvey, and distributed over a much smaller area. Irma has basically taken out the electrical system of the entire state of Florida!

In any number of ways, you can say FL "dodged a bullet" here, in that it could have been much worse if Irma hadn't decided to do a Strafing Run on Cuba before heading for the FSoA. Heading for the West Side of FL, Miami was spared the worst of a dead on hit from the eye wall, although they still lost 3 cranes, have plenty of flooding and the power is out to most of the county. The West Coast track turned out less bad than expected also, as the Eye moved inland pretty early so Tampa/St.Pete was spared inundation from storm surge.

Less Bad than Expected was of course much less bad as what occured in St. Martens and Barbuda, and also apparently across the north Cuban coastline inclduing Havana, where stories are still sketchy from at this point but they are apparently still under a lot of water, with many of the new Tourists Hotels in bad shape. I don't think anyone will be booking vacations in Cuba anytime in the near future.

Far as Florida is concerned, although no single location got the ULTIMATE in destruction (well, except maybe Key West which probably got flattened). 7M 12M customers without electric power is a LOT of wire to re-string! According to the "authorities", they have 17,000 linemen including an undisclosed number from out of state ready to spring to the job on Monday Morning of getting the JUICE back to their Florida customers, who are currently sweltering in the Florida heat & humidity without HVAC while their Frozen TV Dinners go bad in the Freezer. Considering after 2 weeks there are STILL around 200K people without power in Houston, one can figure it will take at least a month to get the full grid back online in FL, since the outages are spread over a much wider area.

Waking up Monday morning, we are in the post-coital phase of the intimate contact with Irma, and for the most part the pols are indeed crowing about how we "dodged a bullet". Miami took some flooding, sure, but they flood all the time these days. OK, we lost 3 cranes, but we have dozens of them! OK, the power is still out, but no problem, the crews from Florida Power & Light will have the lights back on in a jiffy! Back to BAU in Miami in no time! ðŸ™‚

The NEW UPDATE though is that it's not 7M without power, now it's up to 12M! That's basically the whole fucking state of Florida, they only have a total population of 20M! From WaPo:

That was the grateful mantra on the lips of many on Monday, even as an estimated 12 million Floridians prepared for a dark night without air conditioning in the muggy post-storm swelter. Though there was significant property damage in the Florida Keys and in some parts of southwest Florida, officials said it was remarkable that so far they are investigating just a small number of fatalities that came as the storm made landfall. It was unclear how many were directly related to the storm.

The lack of electricity across most of South Florida was the most pressing and crippling problem. Millions could remain in the dark for days or even weeks as utility companies struggle to navigate impassable roads and floodwaters to slowly restore power.

Things not so good over in Naples though, and even worse down in the Florida Keys, where the "authorities" won't be letting anyone back in until at least Tuesday while they asses the integrity of all the bridges connecting this string of low-lying islands built up as Tourista Resorts over the course of the Age of Oil. This is the "Margaritaville" neighborhorhood Jimmy Buffet made famous. When Jimmy first hit it big time as a rock star, the first thing he did was buy himself a yacht and park it in Margaritaville as a getaway if things ever went south for him. After that he got into planes too. As has become obvious here, Magaritaville and the Banana Republics may SEEM like bucolic safe havens in the good times, but they have their own set of risks and overall are not sustainable in the least in the way they are currently inhabited.

Doing still WORSE than the Florida Keys are the Tropical Paradises of St. Maartens and Barbuda, which actually did get hit full on by Irma while she was a Cat 5 packing 185 MPH wind speeds. Both islands basically LEVELLED, and now descending into chaos while their various Colonial Owners the Brits, Frogs and Little Dutch Boys scramble to organize up food aid and police protection from roving gangs of Zombies. All three countries are sending in additional Police/Military to try and restore "order" on these islands. Ex-Pats are huddled in their McMansions in fear of the next Home Invasion, although they probably have nothing left to eat either, since anyone stupid enough to be living in a McMansion in one of these places probably did not have a large supply of Preps either. These are the type of folks who go out the day before a hurricane is due to hit to buy batteries and bottled water. That is prepping up to them.

Economically, it's hard to see how these islands will ever recover to be the Retirement Paradise they were for apparently about 75,000 Brits, not sure how many Frogs or Dutch Boys. The cost to restore Barbuda was estimated in one article to be around $100M. There were something like 1600 people living on Barbuda when Irma came knocking on the door for a short vacation there, so that comes to $62,500 per person, which includes the poor locals who serve as maids and cooks and drivers as well as the retirees who are mostly living on pensions. You think any of them has $62,500 to pony up here to rebuild the infrastructure? Hell no, the Brit Goobermint will have to do it, and they can't even maintain the infrastructure on their own island these days.

Beyond this, MOST if not all of the Ex-Pats whose Mailbox Money incomes drove the economy will not stay in these places now, they are going to grab the first plane flight or boat ride out of there and never go back. Carnival Cruise lines is already sending ships for them. The infrastructure won't be rebuilt for a long time, if ever. The Brits, Frogs and Dutch are not going to fork over the money necessary to rebuild these places, they are total money losers now and for the forseeable future. The income generation capability they had as Tourista destinations is gone. All they will do is try and get the current set of Ex-Pats out of the place and then let the locals Twist in the Wind. Best they can hope for is that their citizenship as a Homo Sap born in one of these colonies will allow them to move to the Home Country, but they don't have much money to make that trip and probably no relatives or support structure to grab onto once they get there. They have a bit higher status than the refugees from Syria and Afghanistan, but not much.

There probably will be consolidation of these people on the islands that did not take such a bad hit, which will of course only serve to strain their resources also. The destitute Newbies will be despised by the locals and a drain on their own limited resources.

Electric power is only part of the problem of course, MOLD & MILDEW are a bigger problem long term. One has to remember that many of the flooded "buildings" aren't buildings at all, they are trailer homes which if they were flooded, the owner simply waits for the water to recede then puts all his stuff out to dry in the hot Florida SUN. Except by the time he does this a few days later, the MOLD has already taken hold, and it is almost impossible to get rid of when it does in a trailer. McHovel owners can strip out drywall and MAYBE eradicate mold, but getting it out of a trailer when it takes a grip is about impossible. You have to TOTAL it at this point and send it to the Land of Away in some junkyard or landfill, but the people who own them and live in them usually can't afford to replace them. Add another Human Soul to the list of Homeless People.

Because this wasn't the "Ultimate Disaster" it might have been, the MSM will likely quickly forget it as they have already forgotten about Harvey & Houston despite the fact more than 200,000 people remain without power and over 20,000 are still in shelters. There will be a new and better disaster to focus on in short order. It will likely take quite some time to get all the electric power restored, if they can even do that before the next one rolls ashore. Meanwhile, these repair bills don't come free you know, Da Federal Goobermint doesn't just hand out free money to fix up your local grid. The money is loaned to the Municipal Goobermint, which then has to raise taxes in order to pay for this new Bond Issue. Problem here would be that local Municipal Goobermints in FL (and everywhere else)ALREADY can't collect enough taxes for bills they ALREADY have! You think cutting a few more Teachers of Sanitation Workers off the payroll will pay to restring all the wire in Florida? Not too likely. However, for BAU to continue forward, these loans MUST be issued out, and they will be backed by the Full Faith & Credit of Da Federal Goobermint, which of course itself is ALSO quite bankrupt.

After meandering for a while in the mid-Atlantic, José looks like it might be lining up to take a Strafing Run at the FSoA East Coast in the middle latitudes. That would really put the kabosh down on BAU.

Hurricane IrmaFlorida Officials Fear “Humanitarian Crisis” in Irma’s AftermathThe storm has subsided, but flooding and power shortages will grip parts of the state for weeks.by Isobel Thompson

September 12, 2017 8:20 am

Damaged houses are seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma on September 11, 2017 over the Florida Keys.By Matt McClain-Pool/Getty Images.

As Hurricane Irma swept north into Georgia, veered toward Alabama, and was downgraded into a tropical depression Monday, officials finally began to assess the scale of the destruction wreaked by one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in U.S. history.

The winds might have subsided, but throughout Florida, myriad towns and cities are submerged in water, The New York Times reports, and streets have been transformed into streams, channeling floating debris past pummeled houses and collapsed trees. Across the state, local officials implored residents to be cautious about returning to their homes, warning of flash floods and electrocution by downed electricity lines. “This is potentially a weeklong event, with water and tides coming and going,” said Jacksonville’s Mayor Lenny Curry, whose city is at risk of a three-pronged torrent of water, stemming from high tides, storm surges, and the swollen rivers overspilling. “We will be moving to a recovery stage soon,” Curry continued. “But we are in a rescue stage at this point.”

Working amid a still-capricious forecast, National Guard troops and fire rescue crews continue to labor, responding to calls from people stranded in cars or stuck in damaged houses. In a low-lying part of Orange County, 150 people (and a miscellaneous number of family pets) were recovered from waters that measured up to six feet in parts. On Marco Island, close to Naples, Police Captain Dave Baer said that rescuers had started carrying out “well-being checks” on Monday, as people inquired about friends and relatives who had not been heard from or who needed help.

The Florida Keys are thought to have borne the worst of the hurricane. After taking an aerial tour, Governor Rick Scott relayed the crippling damage he had seen to reporters, describing overturned trailers, boats that had been washed ashore, and blows to even the sturdiest buildings. “The water is not working, the sewer is not working, and there’s no electricity, so it’s very tough,” he said, echoing fellow officials, who warned of a potential “humanitarian crisis” on the Keys, with military crews on standby with body bags for possible fatalities among those who failed to heed a mandatory evacuation order.

Estimating that half the island’s roads were at least partially flooded, with some being impassable, Mayor Dick Cronin said most people on the island did not evacuate because they saw the storm moving westward. Monday evening, Key West City Commissioner Sam Kaufman issued a report declaring food, water, and fuel were at “critically low” levels and 200 power poles had been downed. The Defense Department said that damage to the Keys was so pervasive that it might be necessary to now evacuate the 10,000 residents who rode out the storm on the islands.

Although damage was concentrated in certain areas, and some escaped largely unscathed, power losses appeared to be the state’s most widespread affliction. As many as 12 million Floridians lost electricity during the storm, and the chief executive of a major utility, Florida Power & Light, said that it could take weeks to restore full service. Tom Bossert, the White House Homeland Security adviser, said repairing the electrical system would require “the largest-ever mobilization of line restoration workers in this country, period.” While utility companies are prioritizing hospitals in their efforts to restore power to the region, some were still lacking in normal service Monday, which saw 36 Florida hospitals closed, and 54 operating on backup generators, according to data from the Florida Department of Health.

As the U.S. death toll has climbed to 10, Haiti reported its first death, bringing the Caribbean toll to 37. Large swathes of the tropical islands, hit first by fiercest edge of the storm, have been flattened, and foreign governments have suffered sharp criticism for failing to provide adequate support for their overseas territories. Yesterday, the Netherlands’ King Willem-Alexander flew into the Dutch part of St. Martin, to be followed by French president Emmanuel Macron, who lands in St. Martin today. British foreign secretary Boris Johnson is following suit. According to the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Johnson will spend “the coming days” in the Caribbean to see the British relief effort firsthand.

Republican officials dodged questions about the link between Hurricanes Harvey and Irma and rising ocean temperatures, with a White House spokesperson telling the press Monday that Donald Trump’s views on the matter hadn’t changed. The president has thrown himself eagerly into cheerleading the recovery effort, even as he was subject to a thinly veiled attack administered by the Pope, who said that “history will judge” those who refuse to accept the veracity of climate change. The president pulled out of the Paris climate accord in June. “When Americans are in need, Americans pull together,” Trump said. “And we are one country. And when we face hardship we emerge closer, stronger and more determined together.”

Hurricane IrmaFlorida Officials Fear “Humanitarian Crisis” in Irma’s AftermathThe storm has subsided, but flooding and power shortages will grip parts of the state for weeks.by Isobel Thompson

September 12, 2017 8:20 am

Damaged houses are seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma on September 11, 2017 over the Florida Keys.By Matt McClain-Pool/Getty Images.

As Hurricane Irma swept north into Georgia, veered toward Alabama, and was downgraded into a tropical depression Monday, officials finally began to assess the scale of the destruction wreaked by one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in U.S. history.

The winds might have subsided, but throughout Florida, myriad towns and cities are submerged in water, The New York Times reports, and streets have been transformed into streams, channeling floating debris past pummeled houses and collapsed trees. Across the state, local officials implored residents to be cautious about returning to their homes, warning of flash floods and electrocution by downed electricity lines. “This is potentially a weeklong event, with water and tides coming and going,” said Jacksonville’s Mayor Lenny Curry, whose city is at risk of a three-pronged torrent of water, stemming from high tides, storm surges, and the swollen rivers overspilling. “We will be moving to a recovery stage soon,” Curry continued. “But we are in a rescue stage at this point.”

Working amid a still-capricious forecast, National Guard troops and fire rescue crews continue to labor, responding to calls from people stranded in cars or stuck in damaged houses. In a low-lying part of Orange County, 150 people (and a miscellaneous number of family pets) were recovered from waters that measured up to six feet in parts. On Marco Island, close to Naples, Police Captain Dave Baer said that rescuers had started carrying out “well-being checks” on Monday, as people inquired about friends and relatives who had not been heard from or who needed help.

The Florida Keys are thought to have borne the worst of the hurricane. After taking an aerial tour, Governor Rick Scott relayed the crippling damage he had seen to reporters, describing overturned trailers, boats that had been washed ashore, and blows to even the sturdiest buildings. “The water is not working, the sewer is not working, and there’s no electricity, so it’s very tough,” he said, echoing fellow officials, who warned of a potential “humanitarian crisis” on the Keys, with military crews on standby with body bags for possible fatalities among those who failed to heed a mandatory evacuation order.

Estimating that half the island’s roads were at least partially flooded, with some being impassable, Mayor Dick Cronin said most people on the island did not evacuate because they saw the storm moving westward. Monday evening, Key West City Commissioner Sam Kaufman issued a report declaring food, water, and fuel were at “critically low” levels and 200 power poles had been downed. The Defense Department said that damage to the Keys was so pervasive that it might be necessary to now evacuate the 10,000 residents who rode out the storm on the islands.

Although damage was concentrated in certain areas, and some escaped largely unscathed, power losses appeared to be the state’s most widespread affliction. As many as 12 million Floridians lost electricity during the storm, and the chief executive of a major utility, Florida Power & Light, said that it could take weeks to restore full service. Tom Bossert, the White House Homeland Security adviser, said repairing the electrical system would require “the largest-ever mobilization of line restoration workers in this country, period.” While utility companies are prioritizing hospitals in their efforts to restore power to the region, some were still lacking in normal service Monday, which saw 36 Florida hospitals closed, and 54 operating on backup generators, according to data from the Florida Department of Health.

As the U.S. death toll has climbed to 10, Haiti reported its first death, bringing the Caribbean toll to 37. Large swathes of the tropical islands, hit first by fiercest edge of the storm, have been flattened, and foreign governments have suffered sharp criticism for failing to provide adequate support for their overseas territories. Yesterday, the Netherlands’ King Willem-Alexander flew into the Dutch part of St. Martin, to be followed by French president Emmanuel Macron, who lands in St. Martin today. British foreign secretary Boris Johnson is following suit. According to the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Johnson will spend “the coming days” in the Caribbean to see the British relief effort firsthand.

Republican officials dodged questions about the link between Hurricanes Harvey and Irma and rising ocean temperatures, with a White House spokesperson telling the press Monday that Donald Trump’s views on the matter hadn’t changed. The president has thrown himself eagerly into cheerleading the recovery effort, even as he was subject to a thinly veiled attack administered by the Pope, who said that “history will judge” those who refuse to accept the veracity of climate change. The president pulled out of the Paris climate accord in June. “When Americans are in need, Americans pull together,” Trump said. “And we are one country. And when we face hardship we emerge closer, stronger and more determined together.”

The storm has subsided, but flooding and power shortages will grip parts of the state for weeks from now on, until modern civilization is a distant memory.

Paradise has seen better days. The Florida Keys are battered, if not entirely bowed

“I moved here because I wanted paradise — and I got it, at least for a month,” said Laura Costello, 52, a former South Pasadena resident who was found walking through the ruins of the Sea Breeze trailer park in Islamorada, a few miles south of Key Largo. (Video by Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)Patrick J. McDonnellContact Reporter

People here like to throw around the word “paradise,” but these days Route 1 down the spine of the Florida Keys cuts through a jagged tableau of destruction.

Felled palms, splintered trailers and homes, and piles of trash — boats, furniture, appliances and other assorted debris — line the roadside, testament to the force of Hurricane Irma as it careened through the islands.

Shuttered doors and tangles of broken branches conceal resorts with resonant names like Kon-Tiki, the Banyan Tree, La Siesta and the Green Turtle Inn.Hurricane Irma and its aftermath

Many residents were returning to their homes Tuesday for the first time, as police allowed access to the northern swath of the Keys. Many expected the worst, and that is what they found amid rubble that glistened beneath an unforgiving tropical sun.

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“I moved here because I wanted paradise — and I got it, at least for a month,” said Laura Costello, 52, a former South Pasadena resident who was found walking through the ruins of the Sea Breeze trailer park in Islamorada, a few miles south of Key Largo.

The Keys had perhaps taken the heaviest blow in the U.S. from Irma — federal authorities estimated that 85% of the homes were damaged or destroyed — but the storm left its muddy footprints all over Florida and into Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. It was still plodding north on Tuesday, spreading rain over a widening swath of the Southeast. In its wake was a massive cleanup job, complicated by fuel shortages and power outages; an estimated 15 million people in the Southeast lacked electricity.

In Florida, there was significant damage as far north as Jacksonville, which sustained its heaviest flooding in decades.

President Trump planned to visit the hurricane zone Thursday, the White House said, without disclosing an itinerary.

The death toll from the storm was rising, with 12 fatalities in Florida, four in South Carolina and two in Georgia, according to the Associated Press. The storm killed at least 36 people on its rampage through the eastern Caribbean last week before hitting Florida with full force on Sunday.

By Tuesday, Islamorada looked like a malevolent giant had come stomping through, wreaking havoc on people’s homes and personal possessions. Gnarled chunks of aluminum siding were thrown about with wood beams, many with protruding nails, and other pieces of former residences.

Among the many nautical remnants: a placard found tossed in the pearl-white sand of the trailer park that declared: “To our guests. Thou shalt not bring thy worries aboard.”

A few American flags fluttered from the wreckage.

Costello said she began renting a trailer here a month ago for $1,500 a month. She always loved the sea.Laura Costello peers into her home that was ripped apart by Hurricane Irma, at the Sea Breeze traileLaura Costello peers into her home that was ripped apart by Hurricane Irma, at the Sea Breeze trailer park in Islamorada. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

“This was the ultimate for me,” she said. “I could sit out and watch the sun rise and set. It was what I always wanted. It was a dream.”

Her one-bedroom trailer is now a ragged wreck, pushed 10 yards off its cement foundation. Her seaside deck was blown 15 yards away.

“There’s my bed,” Costello said, pointing at a wooden frame half a block from where her home was. “Those are my curtains.”

Fortunately, she heeded the warnings and evacuated last Wednesday with her most precious possessions. She had lived in Florida for more than 20 years and didn’t discount the dangers of hurricanes.

On Tuesday she plucked from the ruins of her dream home a single item: a glass frame mounted with color photographs of her three children when they were young. All are grown now.

“I have my health, I have my life. I’m fine,” said Costello, a bartender in nearby Key Largo, standing at the splintered entrance to her trailer. “I’m just glad I got out of here.”

Nearby were storefronts with plywood strips and shattered windows — and in some cases blown-off roofs. There were storm-battered wine bars, cafes, fish joints, yoga haunts and bait shops. Piled junk obscured the colorful mural of a mermaid on a motel wall.

The trail of damage seemed oddly disjointed. Destroyed homes sat next to other structures that appeared largely unaffected.

In a small harbor, several manatees came to the surface to drink fresh water from a faucet dripping into a now becalmed sea. The slow-moving sea mammals maneuvered around a sunken fishing boat.

But many storage facilities where people kept their vessels onshore seemed to have escaped major harm.

The damage was reported to be even more severe to the south in Marathon, but police closed access. Several small planes at the airport there were reportedly flipped over as authorities endeavored to clear debris-choked streets.

Here in Islamorada, the Gilbert family was contemplating the remains of their condo, once on the third floor of a 12-unit complex along Route 1. The land is very narrow here, perhaps a quarter of a mile or less across, and the sea appeared to have ripped straight through the condominium complex. Most of it sank into the soft sand.Brooke Gilbert, 15, and her father, Mike Gilbert, look at her grandparents' condominium building inBrooke Gilbert, 15, and her father, Mike Gilbert, look at her grandparents' condominium building in Islamorada. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The three-story structure had pancaked, leaving the family’s third-level condo at ground level, in front of a pool of water with ripped pipes and other debris.

“This is very emotional for me and my family,” said Brooke Gilbert, 15, gazing at the remains of the structure and showing a visitor a cellphone snapshot of the building in better times.

The family drove down today from their home in Fort Lauderdale to view the damage. The condo was her grandparents’, but had been part of the Gilberts’ life for many years. Someone had sent them a photo of the destroyed structure, but they only arrived Tuesday to view it firsthand. They were in collective disbelief.

“This is where I learned to swim, where I learned to drive a boat, where I caught my first lobster,” said Brooke, holding back tears as she and her father, Michael Gilbert, observed the smashed home.

It was too unsteady to go inside to retrieve personal items.

“It’s just very difficult for us to come back here and see this,” said Brooke. “It was such a part of all of our lives. Now it’s gone.”

Lisa Borruso plays pool using a headlamp as the power remains out following Hurricane Irma at Gators' Crossroads in Naples, Fla., Monday, Sept. 11, 2017.Photo: David Goldman, AP / Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Florida Power and Light has crews out in full force working to restore electricity to customers impacted by Hurricane Irma. (Sept. 11)Media: Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — In a state built on air conditioning, millions of Florida residents now want to know one thing: When will the power be back on?

Hurricane Irma's march across Florida and into the Southeast triggered one of the bigger blackouts in U.S. history, plunging as many as 13 million people into the dark as the storm dragged down power lines and blew out transformers. It also shattered the climate-controlled bubbles that enable people to live here despite the state's heat, humidity and insects.

Those who evacuated ahead of the hurricane are returning to homes without electricity and facing the prospect of days or even weeks with little to ease the late-summer stickiness.

"Power, power, power," Gov. Rick Scott said. "The biggest thing we've got to do for people is get their power back."

Statewide, an estimated 13 million people, or two-thirds of Florida's population, remained without power. That's more than the population of New York and Los Angeles combined. Officials warned it could take weeks for electricity to be restored to everyone.

The Irma blackout is still much smaller than a 2003 outage that put 50 million people in the dark. More than 50,000 utility workers — some from as far away as Canada and California — are responding to the crisis, according to the association that represents the nation's investor-owned utilities.

The state's largest utility, Florida Power & Light, said Irma caused the most widespread damage in company history, affecting all 35 counties in its territory, which is most of the state's Atlantic coast and the Gulf Coast south of Tampa.

On Tuesday, the company announced that it expected to have the lights back on by the end of the weekend for the east coast. Customers living in the hard-hit neighborhoods in southwest Florida, where damage was much more extensive, were expected to get power restored within 10 days.

While acknowledging the public's frustration, utility officials said they are getting power back on faster than they did after Hurricane Wilma hit the state 12 years ago. The company said it had already restored service to nearly 1.8 million customers.

Any disaster that wipes out electrical service hits especially hard in the South, where tens of millions of Americans rely on the cocoon of comfort provided by air conditioning. Without it, many cities could barely exist, let alone prosper. When the lights go out in Florida, the muggy, buggy reality can be jarring even to longtime residents.

There were signs on social media that some people were growing angry and tired of waiting. Others steeled themselves for an extended period without electricity.

Standing in front of a produce cooler at a reopened Publix grocery store in Naples, Missy Sieber said the worst thing about not having electricity is not having air conditioning.

There's no immediate cool-off in sight. The forecast for the next week in Naples and Miami, for instance, calls for highs in the upper 80s (lower 30s Celsius) and lows barely falling below 80 degrees (27 degrees Celsius). Humidity will hover between 70 and almost 80 percent.

Dan Eckler sat next to his luggage Tuesday at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, waiting for a ride after scoring a seat on one of the few arriving flights after the airport reopened.

"I'm soaking up a few last minutes of AC before I return to my house with no electricity," said Eckler, 46, who lives in Fort Lauderdale and went 16 days without power during Hurricane Wilma.

"You learn what you can cook on your grill. I cooked a frozen pizza because it was about to go bad," he said, referring to his experience during Wilma. "And you finally meet your neighbors."

In Miami, firefighters evacuated a building in the suburb of Coral Gables that had been without power since Sunday, concluding that it was not safe for elderly tenants. The most delicate evacuee was a 97-year-old woman who had to be brought down 12 flights of stairs.

Madeleine Alvarez tried unsuccessfully to get an ambulance to transport her Cuban-born mother who suffers from congestive heart failure.

"Doctors are telling me not to move her. Fire officials say we should evacuate. I don't know what to do. Any change can make her very excited and sick," said Alvarez, who planned to take her mother to a hospital to be examined and then to a hotel because her own home had no electricity yet.

Irma's arrival came in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which created widespread outages in Texas. Some three weeks after Harvey, at least 10,700 customers in that state remained without power. Many of those were homes and businesses that will have to undergo repairs before they are ready to receive electricity again.

In Houston, about 4,000 customers were without power as many homes remained flooded due to water releases from two reservoirs that were filled by Harvey's torrential rainfall.

Back in Naples, Sieber and her husband and 9-year-old son have been using a generator to run a small air conditioner in a bedroom at night.

"It makes you count your blessings," she said.

___

Associated Press Writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami and AP researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

WorldAfter Irma, a once-lush gem in the U.S. Virgin Islands reduced to battered wastelandBy Anthony Faiola September 12 at 7:49 PM

Play Video 1:00Sept. 7: Aerial footage shows U.S. and British Virgin Islands after IrmaEmbedShareHelicopter footage over the British and U.S. Virgin Islands shows the damaged left behind by Hurricane Irma on Thursday, Sept. 7 and Friday, Sept. 8. (Reuters)

CRUZ BAY, U.S. Virgin Islands — The Asolare restaurant is gone, practically blown off its cliff, along with its world-famous carrot ginger soup. The facade of Margarita Phil’s is a junkyard of yellow and vermilion planks. Multimillion-dollar homes and aluminum huts alike lie in ruins.

On the island of St. John, that was only Irma’s beginning. Once a lush gem in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a chain steeped in the lore of pirates and killer storms, this 20-square-mile island is now perhaps the site of Irma’s worst devastation on American soil.

Six days after the storm — some say several days too late — the island finally has an active-theater disaster zone. Military helicopters buzz overhead and a Navy aircraft carrier is anchored off the coast, as the National Guard patrols the streets.

The Coast Guard is ferrying the last of St. John’s dazed tourists to large cruise ships destined for Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico. More than a few locals, cut off from the world with no power, no landlines and no cellular service — other than the single bar you might get above Ronnie’s Pizza — are leaving, too, some of them in tears.

The streets of Cruz Bay, the largest town of this island of roughly 5,000, were a bizarre tableau of broken businesses and boats on sidewalks. Beyond belief, the Dog House bar had not only a generator but satellite TV, and folks streamed in and out, some stepping over debris holding beers.

Debris and destruction caused by Hurricane Irma is seen on St. John Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. (Anthony Faiola/The Washington Post)

A drive up formerly picturesque mountain roads reveals a landscape of such astonishing devastation that it looks as if it were bombed. Entire houses have disappeared. Others are tilting on their sides. Horizons of waxy-green bay leaf trees on jade-colored hills have turned to barren wastelands, as if the world’s largest weed whacker had hedged the entire island.

“Hurricanes? We’ve been through hurricanes — lots of them. But nothing, nothing, like this,” said Jerry O’Connell, a Chevy Chase, Md., native turned St. John developer.

And that’s just damage from the weather.

In the days following the storm, lawlessness broke out — here and on other Caribbean islands. Thieves hit a string of businesses. Houses were burgled, entire ATM machines stolen.

In the information vacuum after the storm, rumors flew like Irma’s raindrops. Prisoners had broken free on nearby Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, seized guns and formed armed gangs.

Left largely unprotected and with no way to call the police, some locals began sleeping in shifts. One local blogger, Jenn Manes, called for help on her island blog — help that finally arrived in force Monday. Others jumped on her for sullying the island’s name, because tough times can bring communities together, but they can also divide.

“I know some people were not happy with my telling the truth — that I was scared, that people here were scared,” said Manes as she lined up Tuesday to catch a Coast Guard boat off the island. “It doesn’t mean I won’t be back. We’re going to rebuild.”

On late Wednesday morning when Irma hit, the Virgin Islands, a haven for cruise ships and those in search of a good piña colada, were supposed to get lucky. A former Danish colony purchased by the United States in 1917, the small island cluster had had more than its fair share of cyclones. Their names read like a litany of salty villains: Marylyn, Irene, Hugo.

Irma was supposed to veer to the north, or so thought Joe Decourcy, a Canadian businessman who moved to St. John in 2001. Instead, the storm slammed the island at full intensity, its Category 5 winds of 150 mph racking it from coast to coast. Irma also hit neighboring St. Thomas, devastating the local hospital and homes and businesses across the island. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, only St. Croix was largely spared.

Decourcy, owner of Joe’s Rum Hut, holed up that night in the formidable villa of a friend. Even the multimillion-dollar home could not hold Irma back. They sheltered on the first floor after second-floor windows were sucked out, causing massive flooding.

“The pressure was insane. It felt like our heads were going to explode,” he said.

When the slow-moving storm cleared, Decourcy emerged with other shell-shocked locals to post-apocalyptic scenes of shattered homes, of cars, boats and sides of homes in the street. “We walked around like ‘The Walking Dead,’ ” he said.

A sailboat named Windsong had landed in the street in front of Joe’s Rum Hut. Islanders quickly banded together, he said, sharing food, supplies. But by Friday, the “vibe,” he said, “started to change.”

A boat rests among debris caused by Hurricane Irma on St. John Island, Sep. 7. (Joe Decourcy/Courtesy of Joe Decourcy)

The island was virtually cut off. No cell reception. No power. No WiFi. It also meant there was no way to call the island’s police, and some began to realize it.

Friday morning, Decourcy arrived to start cleaning up in earnest, only to discover the chains to the bar had been cut by bolt cutters. Inside, the registers were smashed open, the safes ajar. He had banked the bar’s cash before the storm. But who knew what else was missing — he did not have the stomach to do an inventory.

At least four other businesses in a mall he runs also were hit. A gas station was robbed, as was Scoops, the island’s ice cream parlor. The burned-out husk of an ATM and safe, which thieves apparently tried to open with a blowtorch, sit in the town’s police station.

Many residents were outraged it took so long for the National Guard to arrive.

“No structure, no police presence, no National Guard,” Decourcy said. “It got really tense, to the point where business owners were asking, ‘How do I get firearms? How do I get off the island? Are they coming for us?’ I mean, this is supposed to be U.S. territory. And yet people were just running around breaking into residences and stores.”

Devida Damron, 38, a 10-year island resident who works at the local veterinary clinic, was leaving St. John on Tuesday with her boyfriend and her dog, French Fry. She said she saw a man with a machete in the street Friday yelling, “It’s looting time.”

At the same time, a cluster of do-gooders, mostly launching from the Puerto Rican coast, were starting to ferry the old and infirm off St. John. Nils Erickson, a 42-year-old Gaithersburg, Md., native and part time St. John resident, rushed down Friday after he began hearing pleas from islanders on a Facebook page.

“People were begging for help,” he said.

With the aid of a local boat company, a GoFundMe account and credit cards to finance the rest, Erickson began running supply mission and evacuations. Since Friday — three days before large-scale official efforts — they managed to get 600 people off the island.

Debris and destruction caused by Hurricane Irma on St. John Island. (Anthony Faiola/The Washington Post)

So many boats came to aid that the locals began to call it the “Puerto Rican Navy.”

“It was our own Dunkirk,” said Sgt. Richard Dominguez of the Virgin Islands Police Department. “They took their own boats before official means were available. They didn’t wait.”

Kenneth Mapp (I), governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, insisted in a telephone interview that there had been no pillaging at all on St. John, despite evidence to the contrary.

“I am sympathetic, and I understand the people’s fear and desire for more resources on the island as quickly as possible,” Mapp said. “But there was no looting, no abuse of folks.”

President Trump, Mapp said, called him Monday and was due to survey the Virgin Islands damage this week. He would find, the governor said, an efficient response. Those in dire need of assistance were carried off St. John and St. Thomas by authorities via helicopter. On Monday and Tuesday, the bulk of stranded tourists — some 3,500 — were rescued by two massive cruise ships. And the emergency WiFi service was up and running Tuesday night.

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Mapp conceded that it may take “months, months, months” before power is restored to the island but said the delay in mobilizing the National Guard to St. John was unavoidable. The harbor was filled with overturned boats, making landings difficult. He managed to get to the island himself, he said, via helicopter.

“It’s a matter of deployment of assets,” he said. “This was a Cat-five event.”

And yet, the citizens here are indeed pulling together. The Dog House is offering free food. Meaghan Enright, 34, a marketing manager on the island who suddenly finds herself jobless, has found a new reason for being the de facto relief organizer.

“St. John has a singular ability to pull together in a crisis,” she said.